


Listen

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angry Dean Winchester, Gen, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Castiel (Supernatural), Protective Winchesters, Rescue, Torture, Unconscious Castiel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 00:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20321965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Cas was only going to be gone a little while.An hour later, the brothers get a call from Cas’s phone.Except it isn’t Cas, it’s the person who’s holding him, hurting him, and that leaves the Winchesters searching for their angel.And trying to figure out who the hell is behind this.





	Listen

“How long does it take an angel to get some pizza anyway?”

Dean glanced at his phone; the pizza place in town was maybe fifteen minutes away - twenty if you drove like Cas did - and they’d preordered so it should have been ready and all Cas had to do was go pick it up and bring it home.

Sam made a huffing sound from where he was busy tapping away at his laptop. “Maybe you should have gone for it yourself instead of using Cas like your P.A.”

Dean glared at him, not that Sam would notice since he didn’t even look up. “I’m recuperating.”

Sam shook his head. “Cas healed you, you’re fine. Still a dumbass, but even he can’t fix that.”

Dean went to grab the beers from the fridge, figuring Cas _had_ to be back any minute, and pressed the cold base of one against Sam’s neck as he passed, prompting his brother to hiss and swat at him.

Which he avoided, easily, leaving Sam glaring at him.

“Thought you were recuperating.”

Dean popped one of the bottles - maybe it was rude to start when Cas hadn’t come back yet, but it’d teach the angel not to dawdle when food was involved - and took a long swig.

“Gotta keep my fluid levels up, Sammy.”

He heard something under Sam’s breath, that sounded like ‘asshole’ before his brother when back to his laptop.

And then Dean’s phone rang.

He saw Cas’s name flash up, and rolled his eyes; guy could lead a garrison of soldiers and rescue the two of them from hell, but he couldn’t pick up a pizza.

He picked up the phone. “What, they mess up the order?”

He dropped the bottle as he heard a cry of pain, and he knew that voice, he did, fuck, he’d heard his angel make that sound too many damn times.

“Cas!”

Sam shot to his feet, and Dean waved him in frantically.

“Cas?”

All he heard was Cas moaning, and he quickly put the phone on loudspeaker, and set it in the middle of the table.

“Cas, Cas, talk to me. What’s going on?”

“Please,” he heard Cas say, but his voice sounded a little distant, as if he wasn’t holding the phone. “What is it you want?”

Fuck.

Sam grabbed his own phone, and started, Dean figured, looking up where Cas was.

Nobody answered the angel, and Dean strained to hear anything that might clue him in on what was happening.

Cas had only been gone just under an hour. What the hell could have happened in less than an hour?

He heard the sound of something hard meeting flesh, another grunt, and then Cas…

He was begging, and he sounded so scared that Dean wanted to reach through the phone and grab whoever was hurting him, and break their damn neck.

And then he screamed, once, and the line went dead.

Dean sat there, frozen, before he picked up the phone and quickly dialled Cas’s number. 

It just rang out.

“Got him,” Sam said. He reached down to shake Dean’s shoulder, jerking him out of it. “Dean, he’s not far, let’s go!”

++

Even Lebanon had a bad side of town, and Dean figured they shouldn’t be surprised that Cas’s phone was in that part.

They followed the signal to a rundown couple of streets, nothing there but some crumbling houses and a bar and a couple of back alleys with a few figures skulking around.

Sam looked at his own phone, and shrugged.

Cas was pretty close, but that was as specific as they could get.

Dean took out his own cell, and dialled Cas’s number again, and listened.

Every time the bar door opened, shouting and music spilled out into the night, making it impossible to hear, but as soon as the door shut again, they could hear it.

A phone just...ringing.

And these days, when everybody and their mom had a pop song or a quirky tune, only Cas had just the basic ascending tones because no matter how many times Dean got in his phone and changed it, Cas just kept changing it back.

But it was loud, now, and they followed it to the old wreck parked in the alley behind the bar.

It was up on bricks, the tyres, and anything else of value long since stripped.

Well, not everything, because when they forced the trunk they found something of value to them.

Their angel, bound, gagged, unconscious, but alive.

++

Dean got the lights as Sam lowered Cas down onto one of the infirmary beds. They moved without speaking, both of them so used to tending each other or some one else when there had been trouble.

Dean was already gloved up, and he undid Cas’s shirt (the tie had been used to gag him, so was somewhere in the back seat of their car) and was ready to get it and his coat off when Sam held the angel up.

Whoever it was, they hadn’t gone easy.

Cas’s chest was a mosaic of red and swollen flesh. Dean could see the imprint of something with a straight line and sharp corners, the depth of the mark implying weight, but he couldn’t make sense of it.

He and Sam carefully felt their way along Cas’s clavicles, his shoulders, arms, and down his ribs, and found the same on each side: a few that were definitely broken, and some that were at the least bruised and possibly cracked.

“What the hell did they do to him?”

Sam fingered the marks carefully. “It looks like…. Dean, I think maybe they crushed him. Nothing else could explain this.”

With what, he wanted to know, that could damage an angel like this, and then decided that no, he didn’t.

He ran his fingers through Cas’s hair.

Sam grabbed a blanket, and covered their unconscious friend with it. Cas would heal, now he was safe, but until then there was nothing else to do.

Except answer the phone.

++

It was Cas’s.

Dean put it on loudspeaker again, and they both leaned in to listen.

“I take it he’s still alive then. I didn’t think it was possible to kill an angel like that; hurt him, yes, so I’m glad I wasn’t wrong.”

“I’m gonna kill you,” Dean said.

“Of course you think that.”

“What do you want?” Sam said. “Why did you hurt Cas?”

The man chuckled. “Oh, it’s not about your angel, boys. It’s about you, but I guess you probably realise that, don’t you? He didn’t. He kept thinking I wanted something from him. All I wanted was his pain, and I got that, didn’t I?

“Just a shame I can’t see your faces right now, but I’ll let my imagination fill n the gaps.”

Dean snatched up the phone. “I meant it,” he said. “You’re dead when I find you.”

He heard a long sigh. “Dean, Dean. That might take you a while. And in the meantime, maybe I’ll bump into Castiel again; once you let him out of your sight, that is. I have some other little delights in mind for him; maybe next time I’ll FaceTime you so you can watch. Or maybe I’ll drop by and visit that nice sheriff friend of yours. Or the blonde girl.”

“You-“

The line went dead before he could finish, and Dean looked helplessly at Sam.

There was no counting the number of people they’d pissed off over the years, but he couldn’t think of any of them that would wait so long to get back at them, and do it like this.

But one thing was for sure; until they found this guy, took him out, the bastard had been right about one thing.

Cas wasn’t leaving their sight.

He dialled Jody’s number, and just hoped Claire was home.


End file.
